I am a practising artist, and this is my blog. Here, I post about my own art and things art related, as well as general life, from time to time.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Inaugeral Post (also, reveiw of cafepress.com)

Good day, blog world!

My name is Robyn MacKinnon, and this is what will become my arts, crafts, and design blog. More likely it will become a "my life in art, crafts, and design" blog. With any luck I will find lots of material, stories, and anecdotes to keep my potential readers interested :).

I am an art school graduate of 3 years at this point. Not yet "making it work" as such. I'm living at home, shifts at my day job aren't currently plentiful (though the way the job market is right now, I'm grateful to have a job at all), and income from my creative exploits has been residual at best. In light of this situation, I will be plugging my creative exploits when appropriate (ie at every opportunity). These include such things as Cafepress, Spoonflower, and Deviantart at the moment.

I'm currently doing some Cafepress housekeeping. This has recently become one of my residual income streams. Very residual so far, but becoming a more steady trickle as time goes on :). It's particularly satisfying to see what my designs look like on various items, and so far Cafepress seems capable of delivering a good product. The one time I had to ask for a replacement of an item, my request was met with speed and courtesy. Cafepress has its ideosychrosies - certain functions may not work depending on your browser (I've heard Google Chrome works best). They change things as often as Facebook, though usually not drastically. The addition of new products usually makes me feel like a kid playing her favorite video game, I must admit. However, my favorite feature by far is the fan portal feature. There are certain brands (TV shows and movies, mostly) connected with Cafepress, and the fan portal feature means that fans like me (in this case, a rabid Dancing with the Stars fan) can upload their fan art and put it on T-shirts and other merchandise (following specific rules, of course). I can't tell you how excited I was to find out about this O_O. This function has contributed to my sales, and it feels pretty good to occassionally see my products there among other DWTS merch. I'd love to link you to a page that emplains the fan portal function further (I know it exists!) but I'm having a peach of a time finding it >_

http://www.cafepress.com/inkybootsdesigns/8978399 Is where you can go to see the stuff I put this design on :).

It think this is a good place to end this first post. I'll be giving you more of what this blog is about as I go (ie, as I myself figure it out). It's easy to start out with one idea as to what a certain project will be and how it will go, but when you actually get down to it and the possibilities start multiplying, it can be hard to restrict it to being just one thing. The trick is to know when not to restrict it, to let it grow into what it will be.

If you are curious, here is the link to my Cafepress shop. It is an ongoing work in progress, and I will be adding designs and products regularly, so stop by when you get the chance :)!

http://www.cafepress.com/inkybootsdesigns

Later blog world!

PS: I've been trying to dig that URL to the fan portal page out of that paragraph, but it doesn't seem to matter how many page breaks I put in, it insists on being mashed together with the lines on either side >_